


It's All In The Game

by roxymissrose



Series: It's All In The Game [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, First Kiss, M/M, Shmoop, SpN batcave fic, mostly unrelated winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 15:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roxymissrose/pseuds/roxymissrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Sam Winchester spends a summer with his dad, learning the family business: reading things, saving people</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All In The Game

**Author's Note:**

> banner by [angstpuppy](http://angstpuppy.livejournal.com/)

The brassy clang of his alarm clock had Sam flailing right over the side of his bed. He hit the ground on his hands and knees, blinking around the room in total panic but blink all he wanted, he couldn't see. It was like…wearing sunglasses. In a cave. At night. What the heck…?

The alarm was still clanging so he crawled in the general direction of the noise. Banged his nose against a table. Realized it wasn't his eyes, it was the room—it was pitch black. He dragged himself upright and a light high on the wall blinked on, a pale, anemic amber that steadily brightened to a clear yellow glow. By the time the room was fully bright, he'd found the alarm and killed it. Well, not killed it…well, okay, killed it. Not his fault, if it couldn't survive a little bashing against the chilly tile floor, than it just wasn't built all that well, was it?

Dad was going to have a cow.

The alarm clock had it coming, though. Sam reached into a drawer in the table and pulled out a little travel alarm that would have to do duty as keeper of the time until he managed to get another clock. Dad really was going to be frosted. That was the third clock this year….

Sam sighed and slumped off to the bathroom. It was only six in the morning, he was out of school for the summer and the whole "getting up at the crack of dawn" thing just seemed kind of unfair. Living underground like a mole always took time to get used to. At home, the first thing he did winter, summer, rain or shine was open his window. He kind of missed that but at least in the Fortress of Solitude he could play the record player as loud as he wanted to. Solid cinderblock walls worked great to keep the noise in and Dad off his back….

Speaking of record player…Sam dropped the needle on a record that was a couple of years old but still his favorite, and cranked the knob up. Mickey asked Sylvia how she called her lover boy as Sam winked and popped an invisible shot off with his invisible finger gun at cowboy James Dean hanging on the wall opposite his bed. Momentary energy drained away as the last note faded in the air; he scratched luxuriously all over, and yawned a jaw-cracking yawn—and dropped the arm on the record again. The intercom on the desk buzzed and his dad's voice asked, "You awake, Sammy?"

 _Oh for Pete's sake._ Sam dashed to turn the record down and whined, "Dad! I'm up already!"

"Watch the tone, kiddo. I'm just checking. Remember you've got KP today." 

"Yeah, yeah, okay." Almost twenty years a civilian and Dad still talked like he was active service…KP. Gosh. Sam took his finger off the intercom button and considered beating the darn intercom with the remains of his clock. Having a huge, gusty, longsuffering sigh, he figured he'd better make his bed and straighten up—in case the Corporal decided to inspect his room. Sam yanked his sheets flat, and pulled the spread up over the bed, stacked the books he found tucked in his bedding back into the little bookcase that did double duty as a nightstand. Finished with his room, Sam grabbed clean underclothes and chinos out of his dresser drawer and a shirt and vest out of the closet. He pouted again at the monstrous injustice of having to dress like he was going to school when _there was no school._

He unbuttoned his pajama shirt, rolled it into a tight ball and pitched it at the closet. "Mantle swings, annnnd it's a strike! The crowd goes wild! That rookie Winchester is a real up-and-comer, folks!" _Take that, Yankees._ With a grin, he grabbed his kit bag and a towel and washcloth and headed off to the communal showers. After a lightning-quick shower, he was back in his room and his little water closet. Brushed his teeth, gave up on taming his hair—no amount of Brylcreem would help, and that meant Dad was going to start pestering him to get a haircut. _Nuts._ He spent a few minutes trying to look like James Dean, tilting his head this way and that, before deciding if anything, he looked like the guy who played his dad.

With a groan, Sam headed down to the kitchen where he was expected to help out again. 

A dozen eggs cracked and whisked and a mountain of potatoes peeled and buckets of oatmeal served and more dishes washed than there were people living there—Sam was one hundred per cent certain of that—he finally was free to do what he wanted for a few hours. He could play some records, listen to the radio, brush up on his Latin…or have a little quiet time with a locked door, some lotion and Jimmy Dean.

In the end, he decided to just hang out in the stacks. Not all the books were occult-oriented; the Men had a pretty decent mundane library as well. His dad and a few other Elders were in the library, seated at the tables or in the overstuffed leather chairs scattered around the room like some gentleman's club. His dad winked as Sam passed, a Pall-Mall hanging off his lip as usual, elbows resting on sheaves of notes and his ever present cup of coffee at the ready. The head switchboard operator, Doris, a tiny little blonde with an ever-present smile, waved at Sam as she made her way around the tables, topping off cups with the steaming pot she carried. 

"How about you Sam? Cup of joe to take upstairs with you?"

He smiled and shook his head. Doris was the daughter of one of the Elders, an MOL in training, just like Sam. And not incidentally, free labor, just like Sam. She was pretty cool, had showed him how to operate the switchboard and everything. Which in retrospect might not have been as unselfishly nice as he'd thought since now he was called on whenever she needed a break. Sam had the feeling Doris wanted to teach him much, much more than the switchboard. He had the sneaking suspicion that his dad thought that she should, too. Or he should. Or they should…something…together. Sam shuddered. Like some arranged marriage. Legacy mating. He skirted Doris and dashed up the stairs to the rear of the stacks and blessed privacy.

Still, there were good points—between learning to work a switchboard and typing at a pretty decent speed, by the time this summer was over he'd have experience for an assortment of part time jobs when he headed off to college. Which was going to be law and Stanford and not dead languages and Yale, thank you very much. College—the college he chose—was going to be Sam's chance, finally, for a normal life. An average life, not one filled with monsters and the supernatural and…and…his dad's unreasonable expectations of him.

Sam was curled up in a nook in the upper level, deeply entrenched in the world of Odysseus, when the alarm sounded—a weird, low warble that made Sam's skin crawl. Red lights posted here and there on the main floor flashed on and off.

His dad looked up and caught his eye. He put his cigarette out and called, "Sammy, you wanna help getting the Hunters in?"

"Boy, would I," Sam was so gassed to actually meet real live Hunters he forgot to call his dad out on 'Sammy'. Sammy was a short fat nerdy kid—he was _Sam,_ a tall…kinda scrawny…nerdy kid. Oh well. He shrugged and ran down the stairs to the main floor. Hunters! Real live Hunters, the guys who saw the monsters his dad and the other Elders wrote up and cataloged, who dealt with the spells and charms and lore that Sam knew in theory. He bet that they had tons of stories to tell, lots of adventures. They were the real deal. What they did really made a difference, saving people, hunting things that wanted to hurt people—out there on the front lines.

"They're coming in by the loading dock. Why don't you head down there now?" His dad said, and Sam took off without another word. He thundered down the stairs that led to the maze of corridors under the living quarters, where the lab and stores were, and where the Hunters would come in. 

A guy Sam recognized as Marty, one of the Level Ones, stopped when Sam came racing down the hall. He gave Sam a look that was just short of an eye-roll, but his tone of voice was kind. "Here, kid." He dumped a load of clothes in Sam's arms. "These just came fresh out the laundry. Make sure you grab the clothes they stick in the lockers—there's some bags in the locker room you can put the dirty clothes in. Stuff that's, uhm, no good—you'll see what I mean—you leave in the drums in the discard room." At Sam's confused look, he snorted, pat him on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You'll see the signs. Go. I know you're itchin' to."

Sam trotted down the hall, careful of his cargo, until he came to a set of double doors and backed through them struggling to keep a grip on the tower of laundry clutched in both arms. The doors opened onto a cavernous room, its high ceilings pierced with light wells made it surprisingly bright, combined with florescent lighting tubes all along the top of the walls. Summer sunlight poured in through another set of double doors, big iron things, at the far end of the room—more of a loading dock, actually. A group of men were at the doors, sauntering in like a group of Sunday strollers instead of the hard-bitten, barely literate men he'd been told Hunters were. Sam did a double take when he saw two of the men were actually women. An electric cart rolled along with them, something on the back of it under a tarp. One of the Hunters jumped off the back and walked to the group gathering by the lockers, his rolling swagger capturing Sam's attention.

Sam hung there at the doorway, mouth open. A tall bald guy snapped at him, "Hey, kid, if that's our stuff, bring it the hell over."

Sam blushed deep red at the obscenity. There were girls in the room. He shuffled forward, trying to ignore the laughter he knew was directed at him. He was pretty sure one of the girls called him a nerd.

He dropped the pile of fresh clothes on a wide bench next to the rows of lockers flanking the benches. The Hunters were popping open what Sam figured must be their own lockers. He caught glimpses of nametags on them. He was impressed, feeling a little star struck. He didn't get that his dad and the other Elders looked down on Hunters. They were heroes to Sam, kind of John Wayne and Gregory Peck rolled into one. It was just, he'd never expected them to be _young._ Some of the Hunters, the girls included, didn't look much older than he was. 

The bald guy glanced over at him, said, "Whose whelp are you?"

"Unh…John Winchester's my dad, sir," Sam replied. "My…unh, my name's Sam."

"Hunh. Well, Sam, I'm a Sam too. Samuel Campbell. These are some of my family. They'll make themselves known to you. And when you get back to your father, tell him I want to talk to him. "

"Yes sir."

One of the girls, a dark haired girl with a pointed, up-tilted nose smiled at him. "I'm Gwen. That's Christian, Mark, Marny and Dean. Campbell." 

The one she pointed at and called Dean tilted his head out from behind his locker door. "What?" he asked. "You called me?"

Sam stopped…everything. Breathing, thinking, _being_. The guy was handsome. No, he was beautiful. If you could call a man beautiful. This Dean Campbell was…more beautiful than James Dean. And up until that moment, James Dean had been the pinnacle of young Sam's fantasy life. James Dean and Sam's right hand had led an especially satisfying life until this moment. Now Sam was never going to be able not to think of Dean Campbell. It was fate—two Deans. 

Dean was glowering at Sam, hands on his hips and waiting for something. What, Sam couldn't imagine. Unless he wanted Sam to stop staring at him. Sam dropped his gaze and struggled not to flush. If he didn't watch himself better, he was going to be found out and…and that would be…disastrous, bad on a level of uncontained curse magic bad.

Sam stood to one side and watched their medics check out each Hunter, dispense aspirin, peroxide and bandages, one of them was sent to the medic station, but they went under their own power so Sam figured it couldn't have been too bad. Then stood in total jaw-dropping shock as they dropped their clothes and stood naked as jaybirds and as unconcerned about that as if they were alone…Sam's brain was in serious danger of blowing all its fuses. Sam whirled away from the group, quickly unloaded the cart that Marty had rolled up. Soap, shampoo, shaving kits…he fussed around with them, back turned to the Hunters as long as he could before finally turning to pass the kits out. His cheeks, neck, right up to the tip of his ears felt as if they'd had a blowtorch taken to them.

"Hey, Shortstuff," Dean said as he snatched a kit out of Sam's weak grip. "Roll that tongue up. Not digging the way you're eyeballing my cuz. And word to the wise, Marny _and_ Gwen are dead shots. Can shoot the eye out of a crow at a mile…or a berry hanging off a twig, if you get my drift."

The girls laughed, low and lazy as they strolled off to the showers, hips rolling like sin…if that sort of sin jazzed him but it didn't so he whipped his eyes to the floor and hoped Dean hadn't seen where his eyes had really strayed. "No sir, not looking, I mean, not at girls. _Anyone!_ Not…looking. Nothing."

"Yeea-ah, thanks kid, now am-scray."

Sam took off, trying to outrun Dean's laughter and hoping the embarrassment wouldn't kill him. 

Later, much later that afternoon, Sam was called in to help catalogue what the Campbell's had brought in with them. He was to make concise notes in the journal his dad handed him, with an injunction to pay attention to the lab tech, write clearly, and not let his fascination color any observations. Sam nodded and bit his tongue and headed to the lab.

Sven seemed pleased to see Sam. Sam shrugged on the lab coat he handed him and donned a pair of rubber coated gloves. Sven lectured on the importance of protection and caution as he opened a silver lined box whose lid was deeply carved with sealing sigils and carefully lifted out a jar holding a harpy's heart. Next, he unwrapped a canvas bag containing a set of filthy looking claws. 

"Don’t touch," Sven said. "These claws are deeply grooved—they aren’t poisonous in themselves, but the dirt and filth imbedded in these grooves are a surefire way of contracting disease." He showed Sam another jar, in this sat a smallish gray blob. "Now these are poison sacks. They're under the harpy's tongue. They paralyze their prey so that they can take time eating. Small mouth. But sharp teeth and strong jaws."

Sam nodded, diligently scribbling away. Sven put the harpy bits in the deepfreeze, and asked Sam, in all sincerity, if he'd care for an Eskimo Pie. Sam just as sincerely thanked him and refused. Sven shrugged and shut the lid, thankfully cutting off sight of a bright blue-irised eyeball as big as a melon. 

Next on the list were several curse boxes that Samuel Campbell had couriered in for them. Sven explained how they were made, why the wood they were made of was important, and then gave Sam a list of different specific types of wood, which Sam scribbled into his log, along with notes to look up regions and climates the individual woods came from. Sven also gave Sam a list of four different cursed objects with the assignment to describe the type of box necessary to contain them. Sam sighed, but decided in the long run, it was better than having to clean the lab. He wasn't overeager to eyeball that…eyeball again. 

Sam headed back to his room. Decided he'd wash for dinner first and then, hang around his room or maybe hang out in the day room. The television here got better reception than their television at home….

Dean lay in a lazy sprawl on one of the day room couches when Sam came in, a book held up to his face. "Gwen's not here," he said.

"No, no," Sam stuttered.

"Marny's not here either," Dean growled and sat up.

"No, gosh, I'm not…I'm not looking for either of them. I mean, no one. Just." He held up a magazine. "Reading. Was gonna play some music if no one was around, catch some TV." 

Dean looked at the cover of the magazine with interest, laid the book open over his knee. "Hunh. Amazing Stories. I don’t have that one. Hard to hold on to, what with the mostly traveling. "

Sam sat down; thrilled to find someone else interested in the sf stories he loved. "My dad says I'm being ridiculous with these. Werewolf, hydras, shucks—those are real. Little green men are not. In other words, sf's a waste of time." 

"Well, we can't fight evil every second of the day, no matter what _some_ think." Dean winked and Sam blushed.

"Yeah, I guess that's true. So, there's a—" Sam started before his dad chose that moment to interrupt him. It figured.

"There you are, Sammy." Sam glanced over at Dean who mouthed, _'Sammy?'_ with a grin so wide and pretty that Sam was almost inclined to forgive the mockery….

"Sven and Marty tell me you did an excellent job. I'm proud of you." His dad beamed at him, handing him a generous compliment. And then stepped on it. "Now, take yourself off to the reading room—your Enochian leaves a bit to be desired. Oh, and take your spell log. I looked it over and you're missing some vital base elements—"

"You were in my _room?"_ Sam's voice cracked a bit on 'room', and he wanted to melt through the floor. Here he was trying to ask Dean if he wanted to walk down to the lake, a very private walk, so of course his dad had to come in treating him like a toddler and ruining any chance he might have had with the sexy, mysterious Hunter. "Dad—" he groaned and his dad stopped.

"What?" A puzzled look pulled his dad's eyebrows together and Sam bit his cheek. Of course his dad was confused. Of course he didn't get it. If he'd been talking to Doris, the little switchboard operator, his dad more than likely would have winked and walked away. Probably tossed him the keys to the car…and, and…rubbers. Jeepers, everyone was so set on him romancing that Doris…Sam felt that familiar fist knot his chest up, that brief deep wish that he wasn't. Wasn't like this. He sighed and turned to follow his dad. 

"Hey, Sammy."

Sam whipped around. He hissed, "My name's not Sammy, it's Sam." And then wanted to smack himself. Dean was…something. Maybe flirting. Maybe. At least he wasn't pointing and laughing too much.

"Sure, whatever y'say. Save me a seat for dinner, I hear it's meatloaf and George's cooking tonight."

A little ball of heat expanded in Sam's chest until it filled him like hot champagne. He nodded, afraid to speak and further embarrass himself. When he got up the nerve to meet Dean's eyes, Dean winked and pointed. Horrified that maybe the wink was meant for someone not him, Sam slowly turned in the direction Dean was pointing—his dad was lengths ahead and he had to run to keep up. Even more embarrassing. But—he was going to have dinner with Dean. Well, he was going to sit next to Dean while Dean ate meatloaf but hey, his day was finally looking up.

Dinner. Dinner wasn't…quite what Sam had hoped. It was a tense affair. No, it was good. And bad—good and bad together. Dean sat on Sam's left, right next to him, smelling of Ivory and Old Spice and hair oil. Dean…Dean got the James Dean hair perfectly. He looked like Jimmy Dean—no, he looked better, Sam thought and sent an apology heavenward to Jimmy. Sighed, and stuck his fork into his meatloaf. Yeah. Dean's knee hit his and bounced away, leaving a searing spot of heat behind. Sam nearly choked on his bite. He had to close his eyes for a second, to hide what would be too easy to read.

"Good meatloaf, right?" Dean murmured and Sam said, "Wha?" and wished for instant temporal relocation. Preferably some Paleozoic shoreline. Dean just smirked. Sam gagged down an infinitesimal bit of meatloaf and fleck of mashed potatoes and drove himself insane wondering if Dean was flirting or jacking him up or totally unaware that every time he touched Sam, Sam's whole brain went haywire. Sam gritted his teeth and willed himself not to react but his body hated him, always had, what with his giraffe physic and spotty skin and, and this _thing_ he lived with every day. Sam's meatloaf swam into a muddy grey blur…he choked down a bite of mushy green beans. 

Gwen sat across from him, seemingly unaware of Sam's momentary break with sanity. No, she was glaring, staring at him like he was some kind of failed science experiment. Marny was seated at Gwen's side and she was giving him dagger eyes, had been from the moment she realized that Sam had no eyes for her. Sam worried that she also realized that he was gone over Dean like a cartoon wolf over Red Riding Hood….

"I said pass the gravy, Sam." His dad nudged him, a tolerant smile that said 'boys will be boys, idiots that they are' on his face. 

_A teeny temporal displacement. Just—into next week, is that so much to ask for?_. A small mortified groan escaped against his will. His dad thought he was gaga over one of the girls. Sam passed the gravy and caught a blast of ice from his right side. Doris slammed the bread basket in front of him. 

"Roll?" she snapped and Sam was glad that rolls weren't edged or he'd be in a world of trouble. 

Dean flicked looks from Doris to Gwen to Marny and smirked. Sam admired that he managed to smirk while shoveling in frightening amounts of food without missing a beat. He ate with the single-minded purpose of someone for whom meals came irregularly—all of Hunters did. Sam saw the Elders glance away, trying to hide their disapproval. They didn't get it. How could they, walled up in their ivory tower? None of them missed a meal ever, though judging by some of their waistlines, they could afford to. .

Sam nibbled, Dean and his family shoveled and everyone else at the table discussed a sudden incursion of Djinn. 

"It's a well-known fact that these uncommon, out of place creatures hitch-hike in with immigrants. Another reason not to let those people past our borders."

Sam's dad rolled his eyes. "We're well aware of your bigoted, narrow-minded point of view, Edwin."

"Not all of us care to consort with lower social classes and Negroes, Winchester. Some of us—" 

"Are fardling idiots," his dad said. He bit down on a roll with fire in his eyes and Sam held his breath. There was an air of summer storm over the table and all the Hunters looked expectant and gleeful. It grew, Sam's dad sat straighter, his eye gleamed brighter, and then—

"Have you considered the Tulpa Effect?" Elder Howard said lightly, as though no one had gone off on a racist diatribe. 

"Tulpa?" responded another Elder and the conversation took a neat left and roared down a smoother road. Storm clouds receded and Dean grinned at Sam and Sam struggled not to explode into Jerry Lewis.

After dinner, and a major miracle occurring—not having to do KP—Sam wandered down to the little lake at the bottom of the hill the HQ was built into. It was a nice place, and seldom visited because most of the Elders tended to be chair-bound. The few who weren't hardly ever came out at night. It made the lake a favorite place for Sam to be. Sometimes, he even brought blankets and a flashlight or made a little fire. It was a great place to read, or write, or just think about life. Or James Dean. Sometimes James Dean _and_ Marlon Brando….

He tossed a blanket into a little overhang at the lake's shore, just right to tuck a blanket in. He gathered up some dry branches and some stones to make a campfire. He was just settling down, watching the fireflies dip and swirl in the heavy air. His eyes started to droop a little, mind began to drift into favorite and pleasant reveries….

"Hey."

Sam screamed, high and sustained, a girly scream if ever there was one. He clutched the material of his shirt over his heart, stared wide-eyed at Dean, whose initial shock was giving way to a rich, deep enjoyment of Sam's totally embarrassing the living heck out of himself. "I've never heard a human scream like that before," Dean snickered. 

Sam inhaled, exhaled, and when his heart stopped galloping said, "Give it a minute, you're about to hear it again," and the look in his eye advertised exactly what he meant. Dean put his hands up and backed away a few steps.

"Okay, Killer. Sorry. Sorry for scaring you." Dean grinned at him like…like Jim grinned at Plato in Rebel and Sam felt a dim little flicker of hope turn into a roaring fire. He was certain that smile meant something good. Pretty sure. There was a possibility that Dean liked him like he liked Dean, at least that's what Sam was going with. He smiled back and made some room for Dean to sit.

"…and then, I tripped over it and got this," Dean pulled his pants leg up and showed Sam a series of small silvery puncture marks, little dents all in a row, running up his calf, "but I got the damn thing, dead as a doornail. My first hunt," he grinned and rolled his eyes, like it was no big deal at all.

Sam hovered between feeling horrified and impressed. "Dean—you went up against a chupacabra, alone, at _thirteen!_ Thirteen years old, I was deciding whether The Mickey Mouse Club was uncool or not…I can't believe Samuel let you do that on your own."

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, it wasn't so much _let me_ as _told me._ Dropped me out in the desert with a map, a knife and a canteen, and told me to make it back to camp."

Sam gasped in horror and Dean started, like he was lost in memory. "Oh, no, no, Sammy, it wasn't like that. He'd have stepped in if it looked like I was in over my head, don’t worry."

Sam saw that row of silvery scars on Dean's leg and tried to believe Dean was right. Something about those little round punctures made Sam say, "I don’t want to do this, y'know."

"Oh! You don’t, you don't—I mean, should I leave—?"

"Leave—no! No. I mean yes, I want you—here, I mean. Gosh." Blushed at his choice of words and deeper at Dean's warm chuckle. "I mean this, this legacy stuff. This…I just want to be an average guy, y'know? I don't want to be Samuel Michael Winchester, Legacy, son of John, grandson of Henry, great-grandson of Horace, ad infinitum…I just wanna be Sam, lawyer, guy who helps. Y'know?"

"But…you will be helping as a Legacy. Maybe not one-on-one but you'll be helping people every day, just doing what they do. You'll be a hero, Sam."

Sam shook his head. _"You're_ the hero Dean, not us; you risk your life with helping people, not us. Maybe…maybe I'd feel different if I was one of you."

"No!" Dean's vehemence startled them both. "No," he said again, softer. "I'd like to know that you're safe." Dean huffed a rueful laugh. "Well. Safe as can be anyway." And Sam was reminded that the life of a Legacy wasn't quite the cushy life of an average…lawyer. There were dangers lurking in the books, the spells, the supernatural objects they were caretakers of….

"Nice night, perfect for a fire," Dean said and leaned back on his arms, and as far as Sam was concerned, it was a welcome change of subject. When Dean looked skywards, Sam's gaze went up too. The stars were bright, thick like diamond dust scattered across the sky. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Dean said, "Being a lawyer…if that’s really what you want, Sam, it’s a pretty good idea. I think."

Sam smiled. Dean got it; Sam knew if anyone would, it'd be Dean. Dean was more than just a hunter, he was smart. He felt things, _knew_ things. Sam felt good just sitting next to him, knowing that he could talk to Dean and not be judged, at least not like his dad would. He moved close as he could to Dean and watched the sky grow darker and the stars get brighter. After a while, the fire Dean helped him make was perfect—when Sam brought out a bag of Jet-Puffed, Dean looked at him like he'd spilled a bag of gold in his lap. Sam grinned and shoved a handful of twigs at Dean. Dean pulled out a knife obviously intended for purposes other than whittling and ignored the eyebrow Sam cocked at him when he put deadly points on all of the twigs. 

"Great," Sam said brightly. "Perfect for marshmallows _and_ if we get attacked by vampires..."

"Shut up," Dean muttered and threaded the marshmallows on their sticks. They ate until Sam felt a little queasy and then Dean decided it'd be a great idea to go swimming. 

Sam waved him off. "Go ahead, Dean. The lake's deep and clean enough. Knock yourself out." He wouldn't strip in front of Dean Campbell in a month of Sundays. He could just imagine what Dean would say about Sam's lanky, spotty, giraffe body.

"Sam, c'mon. Drop your gear and get in the water with me or I'll toss you fully dressed, you big pansy."

"Shut up! Are you always this bossy?" he growled and Dean nodded, seeming pleased with himself.

"Yup. Mark and Marny could tell you stories." Dean dropped clothing the way Sam remembered the Hunters doing in the locker room—without a second thought or a shred of modesty. Sam took a lot longer, and he felt the weight of Dean's eyes on him the whole time that he slowly undid buttons, reluctantly removed his shirt, inched down his pants and underwear. He snuck a glance, hoping Dean wasn't impatient or irritated….

Dean was staring, mouth open just enough to let the tip of his tongue peek out. There was something about the way it gleamed, pink and glossy in the firelight, that made it harder to breathe…Sam swallowed and dashed for the cover of water.

"Hey!" Dean yelled, and ran after him, tackled Sam into the lake.

At first, they swam side by side but not together…Dean swimming like a nixie was after him, all his concentration in making the opposite shore and back again. But slowly he relaxed, and Sam teased him a bit, and Dean ended up dunking him and of course that called for payback. They wrestled and mock-fought and tried to drown each other from one side of the lake to the other until finally self-preservation forced Sam back up on shore, gasping for breath and laughing every time he inhaled. When he could finally draw breath without losing it giggling, Dean plopped down next to him on the blanket, showering him with droplets of lake water. Sam didn't even notice that they were both naked; he'd gotten so comfortable with his new friend Dean. 

Dean punched him in the shoulder after showering him. "Not bad, Sam, I really had to fight to get away from you a time or two. I thought you Men of Letters were just brainiacs, but you—you got some power," he said. He gripped Sam's arm and Sam felt a bolt shoot through him. His cock perked up, definitely interested in what was going on. _Not now,_ Sam thought desperately and tried to shit unobtrusively away from Dean but no dice, Dean had a firm grip on his arm. 

"Do you work out?" Dean asked. "Do you use that gym under the locker room?" 

_Gym under the locker room?_ There was a gym down there? Sam definitely had to spend more time exploring the HQ…on his own time. "No, I didn't even know there was a gym at HQ…I seem strong?" 

"Sure," Dean said. "Make a muscle. Come on."

Sam licked his lip and flexed and Dean's hand tightened on him. "Not bad."

Sam nodded again but at Dean's amused look he said, "Not that I'm, I…I'm nothing like you." 

Dean tilted his head. He seemed to be studying Sam and Sam was sure whatever he saw didn't match up to whatever he'd hoped to see, Sam tried again to move away from Dean and his disappointment but Dean stopped him with a hand on his jaw. He frowned, and then, kissed Sam. 

Sam felt something explode inside him, surprised squeak of sound leaked out between his and Dean's lips. Dean pressed forward, more pressure of his lips on Sam's. The kiss was soft, slow…seemed carefully, cautiously, exploring. Dean was giving him plenty of time to stop it or to flip his wig but this was, this was…Sam didn’t know how to think about what this was. 

There was the slightest bit of moisture along with the heat and it jerked Sam back to the here-and-now. It was, Sam realized, the tip of Dean's tongue, leaving a tiny sweep of moist warmth against Sam's bottom lip. The feeling was so intense that Sam was afraid, he was seriously afraid, of passing out. 

"Whoa," Dean held him by both arms and Sam's eyes swooped back open, he blinked at Dean. 

Dean's cheeks were red, his mouth wet and shiny, the pink of his lips a bit darker. Fuller. Sam thought _because of me, I did that._ He shuddered again, tried to fold his hands over his growing erection—maybe if he pretended it wasn't happening, Dean wouldn't see. Dean drifted closer, his grip on Sam's arms turning into his arms looped around Sam, pulling him closer and Sam almost died—Dean was hard, like _hard,_ his cock brushed against the skin of Sam's hip, warm and silky…Dean hissed, and Sam jumped, almost overbalancing and toppling backwards but for Dean's strong, steady grip. 

"Sam? Sam." Dean's eyes narrowed, the look he gave Sam felt like it burrowed right under his skin. His mouth tightened, and he put a little distance between himself and Sam, much to Sam's extreme disappointment and, yes, some relief as well. Dean gathered up their clothes, dumped Sam's in his lap. "C'mon, let's get dressed," he said, his voice soft and patient in a way that made Sam wish he was on the other side of the lake or maybe the state. He knew it; he'd known the minute they kissed that it was going to disappoint Dean. He was probably a lousy kisser. Or maybe…was there something wrong with his stuff? He didn't think Dean saw anything…Sam dressed the fastest he'd ever dressed in his life, torn between the fear he'd disgusted Dean somehow, pure relief that nothing happened, and the wish, oh the wish, that it had. 

They dressed, and sat in silence, letting the fire mutter and snap between them until Sam finally worked up the courage to speak, find out what had gone—wrong. "I'm sorry it was…I've—I've never done that before," he said. 

"Yeah, I figured as much, Sam that's why…wait. You mean never done it with a guy, right?" 

"I've never _kissed_ anyone before." There. He'd said it. The ball was in Dean's court…and Dean looked shocked and a little ill. Sam groaned inside. Swell. Now Dean really didn't want anything to do with him—  
. 

"Damn, Damn it. Sam…I really am sorry. I didn't realize…first kiss, hunh? I'm sorry it wasn't roses and moonlight and some pretty girl. It should have been—"

"Dean, shut up. I'm a guy—I'm not waiting around for moonlight'n roses, God. Or girls. Ever. I always knew wasn't going to be a girl…" Sam shrugged. "It's just always been that way for me." 

"I can dig that." Dean sighed, and rubbed a circle on Sam's knee, soothing little swoops of his thumb. "I grew up feeling like I had one foot in the normal world and one foot in this one," he waved his hand, taking in the HQ tucked into the hillside and Sam knew he meant the unseen world normal people stumbled through blind and defenseless..."This Hunters/Legacy thing…there's too much crap out there, enough to flip your wig daily. Liking boys the same way I liked girls just seemed like small potatoes to me." 

Sam nodded but mostly he was…disappointed? Hurt? It was hard to untangle what he was feeling. Dean wasn't, well he wasn't just like Sam after all—girls _and_ boys? Sam found it hard to imagine. He had a brief, malicious spike of cruel feeling—must make life easier for Dean, he thought savagely, _he has no idea what I go through—_ and then mentally slapped himself for being so stupid and mean. The last thing Dean's life was, was easy. 

"Sammy." Dean tilted his chin up again, and kissed him again. Sam closed his eyes and tried to drown in the feeling of Dean's soft, full lips pressed against his, the thrill it sent shivering over his skin and straight down to his cock, a lovely, shuddery, shot of lightning that jolted harder when Dean's tongue eased its way inside, slid against Sam's tongue…it felt good, it made Sam want more, even if he wasn't sure what 'more' was. He pressed against Dean, rubbing against him when Dean sucked on his tongue. That was…he moaned, and ground against Dean's leg, tried to pull Dean between his own spread legs and get more friction where he needed it. Dean made a noise, and ground down on Sam the way Sam wanted. Fireworks went off inside him. The want, the need was growing and if something didn't happen soon, he was going to come in his pants….

It was Dean who floundered back to sanity, stopped them from tipping over. "Wait, Sam. You’re, we can’t do this, yet."

"Are you crazy?" Sam whisper-shouted. "I'm sixteen, I'm old enough for everything—for this. Come on, Dean, _come on—"_

"And I'm twenty. You're too young. Don't argue with me, I'm trying to do the right thing. You don’t even…we don't even know each other." 

"Why don’t you just tell me the truth? You don't want me." Sam felt like crying, he felt like punching Dean in the face for making him feel like a girl. For treating him like an immature baby. 

"Sam…I want you so much it took all my willpower not to throw you over my shoulder and run to my room." Dean shrugged, looked down at his hands and Sam smiled a little, watching the blush tint Dean's neck. "I was hard all the way through dinner." 

"Wow…you really are a romantic." He didn't mention that he'd been pretty much in the same condition himself.

Dean gave Sam a careful look and when he saw that Sam was sort of smiling and was probably not about to commit murder, he smiled, huffed a soft laugh. "Yeah, well…next year, Sam. You'll be a junior in high school, and you'll know more about yourself and…we'll talk. But for right now…" He pushed and twisted and nudged until Sam was sitting between Dean's legs, back to Dean's chest. "Let's just. Sit."

Sam wanted to crab some more, but. It felt good—better than good it felt _right._ Sam sighed and dropped his head back on Dean's shoulder. Okay. He had tomorrow, and maybe the rest of the week, to change Dean's mind.

In the morning the Campbell's were gone.

"Yep, they took off this morning. There's a medicine man out near Chinle, Arizona who's willing to share knowledge about skin walkers, so Elder Evens sent Elder Howard and that bas—Samuel and his nephew, Dean, to ride shotgun. I heard the rest are heading out to—"

Sam had no idea where the rest of the Hunters were headed to and couldn't care less; he'd stopped paying attention to his dad when he'd said Dean was gone. He turned to head back to his room, his heart aching.

"Oh, wait a minute, Sam," his dad called. 

"Yeah, Dad?"

"That Dean, the one you got friendly with?" His dad didn’t sound quite disapproving so Sam counted that as a mark in the plus column. "He left…ah, here we go, he left his address and I gave him ours, figured you wouldn't mind—"

Sam went from the pit of despair to soaring in half a second. Dean wanted to write! Dean liked him! Oh, Dean….

Sam managed—just—to stop himself yanking Dean's address out of his dad's hand. He dashed back to his room and sat on the edge of his bed, shoulders curled over as he stared down at the address in his hand. Dean's hand had been on this paper. This paper had Dean's handwriting on it, loopy and slanting and kind of all over the page but it was perfect because Dean wrote it and that meant he wanted to hear from Sam and he _liked_ Sam. Sam took a solemn vow, right then and there, to never act like a twelve year old girl again. He cleared his throat and straightened his back and scrubbed extra hard at his eyes. Very clearly, slowly said aloud, "Fucking A." and felt like a hunter. He'd show Dean. Next time Dean saw him, he was going to be shocked. Next time, Dean met Sam, he'd see a grown man, a mature man. Let him try to come up with an excuse then.

He loved Men of Letters HQ. He loved summer. He loved—everything.

3-26-2013


End file.
